The Gilded Age and Progressive Era

  This week we talk to the editors and authors of a forum on The History and Legacy of Anthony Comstock and the Comstock Laws which was published in the Journal of Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Link to the introduction in the Journal of GAPE https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-gilded-age-and-progressive-era/article/abs/history-and-legacy-of-anthony-comstock-and-the-comsto...

Today our guest is Dr. Brian Ingrassia Associate Professor of History at West Texas A&M University. He specializes in modern American history with a focus on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, as well as sport history, cultural/intellectual history, and Texas history. He is also the current editor of The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. If you listened to our OAH sampler episode...

Here's a little bonus for you. A couple of weeks ago, the Organization of American Historians (OAH) held its annual conference in Philadelphia, PA.The Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era is a sponsored organization of the OAH and have a large presence at the conference. It is where we hold our annual business meeting, journal editorial meeting, present our awards, sponsor...

In this episode, we speak with renowned-Roosevelt scholar and former host of the podcast Michael Patrick Cullinane about his new book Theodore Roosevelt and the Tennis Cabinet . We often imagine Theodore Roosevelt as a singular force who reshaped the presidency through sheer energy and will. But Cullinane offers a different perspective, showing how Roosevelt relied on a network of informal advisor...

We have a special treat for you today - we get to listen in on a panel from the conference Old Women, Race, and Power recorded at the Huntington Library in Pasadena CA.. The panel, "Challenging Colonial Imagery: Indigenous Centenarians and Gender in California,” explores the way old age and race intersected in ideas about Indigenous Californians, the California missions, and the Spanish fantasy pa...

Why does it feel like government can’t get things done? From housing to infrastructure to climate, even widely supported policies often stall. In this episode, Boyd Cothran speaks with Marc J. Dunkelman about his new book, Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress—and How to Bring It Back.  At the center of Dunkelman’s argument is a tension inside progressivism itself. Since the late nineteenth...

Today we are delighted to welcome a guest host, Dr. Chelsea Gibson of SUNY Binghampton, and the co-editor of the  SHGAPE Blog . who is interviewing three of the 2026 SHGAPE prize winners: Carlotta Wright de la Cal , winner of the SHGAPE research grant for her project “Rule of Rail: Railroad Labor and Cross-Border Mobility in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, 1880-1930.” Nicole Martin winner o...

In this episode, Boyd Cothran and Cathleen Cahill sit down with James H. McCommons to discuss his sweeping new book, The Feather Wars: And the Great Crusade to Save America’s Birds — publishing March 17, 2026. 📘 Pre-order now: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250286895/thefeatherwars/ At a moment when conservation feels both urgent and politically contested, McCommons takes us back to the late...

There’s a lot in the news these days about politics on college campuses with discussions of student protests, curriculum debates, and faculty engagement serving as hot button issues. This sudden and intense focus makes it seem as if this may be a new phenomenon, though anyone who lived through the 1960s and 70s would beg to differ.  Our guest today,  Dr. Kelly L. Marino ’s recent book,&n...

In this episode of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era Podcast , Boyd Cothran talks with historian Patrick O’Connor about his new book, The Political Reconstruction of American Tobacco, 1862–1933 . Rather than treating tobacco primarily as a moral problem or a corporate success story, O’Connor approaches it as a window onto the making of the modern American state. Beginning with Civil War–era taxat...

Cathleen talks with Dr. Hilary N. Green, whose most recent book, Unforgettable Sacrifice: How Black Communities Remembered the Civil War, was published by Fordham University Press in 2025. https://fordhampress.com/unforgettable-sacrifice-hb-9781531508531.html An exciting addition to scholarship on Civil War memory with its focus on African American traditions of memorialization, the book also offe...

In this episode of The Gilded Age and Progressive Era Podcast , Boyd Cothran speaks with historian Daniel Wortel-London about his new book, The Menace of Prosperity , a sweeping history of New York City and the political economy of urban growth from the aftermath of the Civil War through the late twentieth century. The conversation centres on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, when New York’s lea...

There are a few people that embody a period. Isabella Stewart Gardner knew many of the the movers and shakers of the Gilded Age and lived from 1840-1924. Her story, and her compulsion to buy the art of the age, makes her a great lens through which to understand the Gilded Age. Dr. Natalie Dykstra joins the show to discuss her latest biography of Bella. Natalie Dykstra,  Chasing Beauty: The Li...

In this festive episode of the Gilded Age & Progressive Era podcast, we welcome back food historian Becky L. Diamond to discuss her latest book, The Gilded Age Christmas Cookbook . Using recipes as historical evidence, Becky takes us into nineteenth-century kitchens to explore how Christmas took shape during the Gilded Age—an era defined by inequality, immigration, and the rise of modern consu...

While Cathleen and I are working on new content for the podcast—lots of great episodes are on the way—we’re also taking time to revisit some of Michael’s excellent past interviews. For my second “best of” pick, I chose Episode 54, The Allure of Empire, which first aired on July 4, 2023. In this episode, Michael talks with historian Chris Suh about his award-winning book The Allure of Empire: Ameri...

While Cathleen and I are working on new content for the podcast—stay tuned, there’s lots of exciting stuff coming—we wanted to take a moment to revisit some of Michael’s excellent past episodes. For my first “best of” pick, I chose Episode 17, Oceans of Grain, which originally aired on March 2, 2022. In this episode, Michael talks with historian Scott Reynolds Nelson about how the global trade in...

Boyd and I are working on new content for the podcast-we have lots of good stuff planned for the future. But in the meantime, we wanted to take a moment to revisit some of Michael’s excellent content. We each picked two of the previous episodes as our “best of” but we totally acknowledge that we could have picked many more than two; this was a very tough choice, but we hope you enjoy (re)listening...

Think you know the story of women’s suffrage? Think again. In this episode of The Gilded Age and Progressive Era Podcast , Boyd sits down with co-host Cathleen D. Cahill to discuss her groundbreaking book Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement (UNC Press, 2020) . Cahill’s book challenges the traditional narrative of women’s suffrage by centring the Indigenous, Afr...

Today Cathleen interviews Elizabeth Garner Masarik, about her book, The Sentimental State: How Women-Led Reform Created the American Welfare State (University of Georgia Press, 2024), which is the 2025 winner of SHGAPE's H. Wayne Morgan Book Prize. For more information about the Society's three book awards (deadlines in October) see https://www.shgape.org/prizes-awards/ Books mentioned by Dr. Masa...

Hello listeners! Boyd and Cathleen are back and looking forward to giving you more regular content this fall. This week, Cathleen interviews Boyd about his recent book, The Voyage of the Edwin Fox: How An Ordinary Sailing Ship Connected the World in the Age of Globalization  (UNC 2023). In this sweeping story of globalization seen from the deck of an ordinary ship, the small details, ind...

In this episode, Boyd and Cathleen talk to Leslie Jones, Director of Museum Affairs and Chief Curator at The Preservation Society of Newport County, about the society's new exhibit: Richard Morris Hunt: In A New Light . Through the conversation we learned more about this important Gilded Age architect and his vision for American national identity that visible through his architectural projects, th...

Cathleen Cahill and Boyd Cothran introduce themselves and lay out t heir plans for the Gilded Age & Progressive Era podcast over the next few months, including an upcoming interview with Leslie Jones, curator of the Newport Preservation Society's new exhibit about Gilded Age architect Richard Morris Hunt. Cathleen and Boyd also offer their gratitude to podcast creator and former host, Michael...

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This episode marks the show's anniversary and after nearly five years of production, host Michael Patrick Cullinane explains where the show might go from here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the Gilded Age, the coinage of gold and silver had real implications for the economy. Mike Moran joins the show to discuss his latest book When Coins Were King and how the bonanza in mines had a reaction in the Treasury. Essential Reading : Michael Moran, When Coins Were King (2025). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.